Of all the controversial men Joe Rogan has encountered over the years, one appears to have had a darker impact than most.
‘My dad would have turned me into a f***ing psychopath,’ the 57-year-old podcaster once said of his father, Joseph Sr.
‘He was crazy, he was a psychotic person… someone who can’t keep it together. I would watch him beat guys up at a bar. He was a karate guy.’
Rogan’s father, now a retired New Jersey cop in his 80s, has vehemently denied the allegations. Indeed, they haven’t been repeated since Joseph Sr’s attorneys sent Rogan a letter warning against the ‘defamatory statements’ in 2022.
But his claims of a violent upbringing have continued to raise eyebrows – not least from Rogan’s own half-sister.
Rosa Rogan Lunelli, 46, has told the Daily Mail she has never met her famous relative and angrily rejects the claims he has levelled against their elderly father.
Rogan, 57, hasn’t spoke to his father Joseph (right) since he was seven years old
Rosa Rogan Lunelli, 46, told the Daily Mail she has never met her famous half-brother and angrily rejects the claims he has levelled against their elderly father
‘Ever since Joe’s receipt of the attorneys’ letter, he has no longer spoken about his claims of abuse,’ Rosa says.
‘My family adamantly denies those claims. There has been no contact on Joe’s part with wanting to meet our father nor us.’
It’s a point of regret for MAGA supporter Rosa, who says she felt ‘proud’ when Rogan interviewed Donald Trump last October during a three-hour conversation that helped propel the President back into the White House.
‘It was absolutely an influential moment of the campaign when Joe interviewed Donald Trump before the election,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘Our family fully supports President Trump and his agenda and what made it so influential is it was something that was never done before.
‘Joe has the ability to shape people’s thoughts, feelings and attitudes through his podcast, so bringing President Trump on was huge. Our family was happy the podcast was so successful for the Trump campaign.’
So what is the truth of Rogan’s extraordinary backstory, which saw him rise from a troubled childhood to one of the most powerful media titans in the US?
Born in Newark in 1967 to Joseph Sr. and his mother Susan, Rogan’s parents split when he was five.
He and his mom then moved to San Francisco two years later while his father remarried and had two daughters, Rosa and Bridget. Father and son have not spoken since.
A young Rogan settled in the suburb of Haight-Ashbury, which he has described as ‘the middle of hippie San Francisco’.
His new neighbors were a gay couple who his mom would ‘get naked with and play the bongos and smoke pot’. Susan soon remarried herself, to a ‘hippie’ computer programmer who Rogan has never named publicly.
Rogan with his wife, Jessica Ditzel, at the United States Grand Prix in Texas last year
Describing his new life in SF on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, he’s said: ‘All of a sudden I’m living with this hippie guy in San Francisco around a bunch of gay people. I went from living around these Italian, New Jersey psychopaths to San Francisco, peace and love.’
As a teenager, Rogan moved again to Newton, Massachusetts, where he struggled at a new high school and took up karate to feel more confident.
‘I was really terrified about being a loser. That was my No. 1 fear in life,’ he recalled in 2014. ‘I was scared of the future. Martial arts gave me not just confidence, but also a different perspective of myself and what I was capable of. I knew that I could do something I was terrified of.
‘I do not think I would have ever become who I am if I didn’t learn martial arts at a very early age. I think the best decision I ever made in my entire life was to immerse myself in something so incredibly difficult.’
Indeed, it was an experience that would prove instrumental in landing Rogan a gig in 2002 as a Ultimate Fighting Championship commentator, where he quickly made his name.
At the time, a 35-year-old Rogan was making ends meet as an actor and stand-up comedian, and he had just started hosting for the NBC gameshow Fear Factor.
But he caught the eye of UFC chief Dana White, who had taken over control of the fighting championship the previous year.
White had been packing up VHS tapes to move from New York to the UFC’s new headquarters in Las Vegas. He played one at random and, by pure coincidence, it showed Rogan being interviewed about Fear Factor. But as White recalls, ‘all he would talk about was UFC… and what UFC fighters would do to martial arts guys in the movies. I was like “this is exactly what I need”.’
Donald Trump embraces Rogan in Madison Square Garden, days after his endorsement led to election victory
Rogan and Ritzel pictured together at Trump’s inauguration in Washington in January
Rogan was so passionate about the championships that his first 13 appearances doing color commentary were for free. But he quickly established himself as a knowledgeable and popular presenter.
‘Early on, nobody understood the ground game,’ White, a close Trump ally himself, said last year. ‘Rogan would walk you through what was happening literally before it would happen.
‘He would tell you the setup, what would come next and he would articulate it perfectly, brilliantly, and people at home started to understand. The impact that Joe Rogan has had, and continues to have, on this sport is immeasurable.’
Rogan continued hosting Fear Factor until 2006 when he got into a fight with a contestant, whose wife Rogan had criticized for punching a rival. The show was cancelled that same year for unrelated reasons.
But he remained a prominent fixture at UFC where his theatrical reactions to knockouts made him go viral.
In 2021, he famously interviewed Conor McGregor minutes after the bloodied UFC fighter broke his leg during a match. Then, a year later, he was filmed thrashing around in his chair during a dramatic fight between Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman.
But his stratospheric rise to superstardom came through his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which he launched in 2009. He quickly found momentum and, within two years, had signed a deal with radio service SiriusXM.
Then in 2020, he made the big time: signing a staggering $200 million deal with Spotify, where he now has 14.5 million followers along with 20 million YouTube subscribers.
And with those numbers has come great influence – and not to mention controversy. On the show, Rogan has wildly theorized on why the moon landings might be fake, whether Egyptians really built the Pyramids, and he was even accused of pushing anti-vaccine views during the pandemic.
Rogan’s guests on his show range from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) to North Korean defector Yeonmi Park (right)
Rogan was so passionate about the championships, that his first 13 appearances doing color commentary were for free. But he quickly established himself as a knowledgeable and popular presenter
In 2021, he famously interviewed Conor McGregor minutes after the bloodied UFC fighter broke his leg during a match
Previous guests have included scientists, astrophysicists, and authors such as North Korean defector Yeonmi Park, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In 2019, it was thought he could be the kingmaker for the Democrats after interviewing Bernie Sanders and endorsing him to be the party’s candidate in the upcoming election.
But five years later, his political ideology shifted – with Rogan interviewing the likes of Trump and Elon Musk.
Trump was desperate to land Rogan’s endorsement in the 2024 election, urging him to back the GOP throughout his three-hour podcast interview. But Rogan didn’t grant it until the 11th hour – and only after Rogan and Trump’s Democrat rival Kamala Harris had failed to agree on terms over an equivalent appearance.
‘Joe Rogan just endorsed me, isn’t that great?’ Trump said on the eve of the election after learning the news in Pittsburgh. ‘He doesn’t do that, he doesn’t do that stuff. And he tends to be a little bit more liberal than some of the people in this room.’
Rogan and his wife Jessica Ditzel, a cocktail waitress who he married in 2009, were guests of honor at the President’s inauguration in January.
Rogan’s wild reactions have often gone viral from when he calls dramatic UFC fights
Rogan initially made his name as a stand-up comedian
And yet, it seems, cracks are beginning to show.
Rogan made headlines last week after appearing to criticize Trump’s mass migration policy, saying that innocent people could languish in a ‘hell on earth’.
‘You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons. This is kind of crazy that that could be possible. That’s horrific,’ he warned.
All of this, however, means little to Rogan’s estranged family back in Newark.
In the sleepy suburb of Kearny, home to just 40,000 people, the Manhattan skyline looms large and Trump flags flutter outside homes. You wonder how many residents know that the old man who is always in a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket and cap is, in fact, Rogan’s father.
‘I’m in my 80s, I’m in the rearview mirror,’ Joseph Sr. said in 2022. ‘But I would like to see him. I definitely would sit down with him because he needs to listen to my side of the story. He never asked, didn’t know what I have to say. He doesn’t know how much it hurt me, and what I had to go through.’
